This year’s host of the AIPC conference was Nantes, a city on the Atlantic coast of  France, which develops rapidly and which, consequently, has become an interesting destination for different spheres of tourism.

As AIPC represent an International As­sociation of Congress Centers, it is important to reflect on the results of its annual Survey. In summary, the results of the conference show a solid business growth and development and implementation of new strategies as a response to chan­ges in the industry that seeks to satisfy the growing needs of the client.

The foregoing AIPC research was cre­ated on the basis of monitoring of industry performances for a period of seven years, which were followed by a global financial instability.
In addition to other relevant factors taken into account while drafting this review, there are two additional ones: safety measures in congress centers, and the role and scope of subsidies as a component of marketing of the congress centers.

So, the key findings of the AIPC research 2016 are:

• The income of the congress centers showed an unexpected increase of 8% in 2015, instead of 4.2%. However, for the next year, it is forecasted a twice lower in­come – only 4.2%.

• The strongest regions and markets continue to grow and strengthen while the weak become even more weaker.

• Adapting business innovations – which was the theme of the AIPC Conference – have been identified as a major priority of the centers.  Almost 60% of those have imple­mented innovations in their busi­ness in the past two years, which has led to the fact that 40% had a new increase in revenue in the same period. Australia and North America are
  leading herein with 69% and 67%, respectively.

• The sectors most affected by innovations and changes were technology, food and beverage and the client venue experience.

• Event organizers are also faced with the changes because the events themselves are changing their format, turning to modern technologies and slowly moving away from the formal structure of the event.

• Most of the centers is solidly pro­vided with appropriate security measures, but the least changes were made in this field, which has led to increasing concerns among clients.

• Subventions – more than 53% of centers have received this type of assistance in the past five years. However, they are granted in a strategic manner and offered to key customers under certain con­ditions.

• The budgets for the funds tend to withdrawal.

Convention centers that implement the innovations, new experiences for users with the capabilities of nonstandard formats of events, taking into constant account the measures of control and security, remain leaders in their field, and can expect even greater growth in the future.